mehmed iv’s life and legacy, from ghazi to hunter 243
The best example of the transformation in the sultan’s reputation can befound in the successive versions of the chronicle written by Ahmed Dede. In
the introduction, the astrologer praised the Ottoman dynasty’s moral virtue,
expressed by its establishing justice in the empire and waging ghaza and jihad
against polytheists and heretics abroad. Continuing to express these themes,
in the introduction to his section on Mehmed IV, written during his reign,
Ahmed Dede wrote, “He was the pearl of the crown of sultans, the best silk
brocade of khans, the one who brings glad tidings of justice, kindnesses and
favors, who spreads security and the faith, the protector of the lands of God,
East and West, the one who helps the servants of God, far or near, the pious
and God-fearing sultan, the khan who conforms to the canon law, the muja-
hid, ghazi king, deliverer of conquest and ghaza.”^17 A generation later, when
the poet Ahmed Nedim was commissioned to translate Ahmed Dede’s history
from Arabic into Ottoman in 1 720, the image of the pious, warring proselyt-
izer evident in the quotation above was deemed inappropriate to the time and
replaced by the bland phrase “the greatest sultan and most honorable shah of
shahs, the king who watches over the believers.”^18 Mehmed IV had been trans-
formed into a sedentary sultan. No mention is made of Islam, piety, jihad, or
ghaza. References to Mehmed IV waging jihad, which appear in the original,
are excised in Nedim’s translation. Whereas the table of contents in Ahmed
Dede’s original labels Mehmed IV “the esteemed conqueror and ghazi, the sul-
tan Mehmed Khan the ghazi, son of Ibrahim Khan,” the table of contents of the
nineteenth-century printed version of the Ottoman translation labels Osman
and Murad IV ghazis, but Mehmed IV “the Hunter.”^19 Although the “Hunter”
label offers some visions of mobility, it is not the same as the mobile, manly
warrior image promoted during his reign. Despite the repeated assertion of
modern historians that Mehmed IV acquired the epithet “the Hunter,” they do
not clarify that it was actually applied centuries later; the nickname does not
appear in any text written during his reign.^20
Even though for nearly thirty years, an entire generation, every preacherin every mosque in the Ottoman Empire during his Friday sermon called
Meh med IV “Ghazi Sultan Mehmed Khan,” only a generation after his death,
Mehmed IV had been remade into a sedentary sovereign. Other historians writ-
ing after Mehmed IV was dethroned also declined to refer to him as a ghazi,
instead choosing to accentuate his sedentary nature. Nihadi, who wrote a uni-
versal history of the Ottoman dynasty from its origins in 1281 to 1 685, begins
his work praising Osman for being the chief of all ghazis. Although he relied
largely on the Chronicle of Abdi Pasha, he does not refer to Mehmed IV as ghazi
or mujahid. When he describes Mehmed IV leading two military campaigns